AFL Rd 20 2024 Post Game Prognostications Carlton vs Port Adelaide

[Thryleon]

At the start of the season my greatest concern was expectation. And how we would deal with it and rise above it.

So let's distill and keep it simple. Here's the boring repetitious stuff that I've being banging on about for months (that erases nervous expectation delivery)... be the hunters. Live it and breath it.

A cliche that p1sses me off is... 'we know we can't have it all our way all the time...' what a ridiculous obvious reality to put in the player's heads and hearts - it opens a back door. It's a lapse excuse. It's a lapse justification. That's human nature, don't feed it with comments that give a lapse a justification or excuse.

Hunters crack the sh*ts with lapses. Hunters are intolerant of lapses and letting other sides in. Being the hunter should be and must be the default and the ruthlessly persistent position. And if someone hunts us... fckn great... 'now I'm going to hunt you harder than you hunt me, and for longer'. Hunters inspire and lift team mates. Hunters create an energy and spirit that is contagious & omnipotent... and a great single focus, provided, in our game, you have the blokes who can deliver. In the main, we have those blokes. A hunter culture weeds out non-hackers real quick. Examples? Newman is a hunter, so is Weiters, so is Acres, so is Crippa, so is Charles, so is TDK. I'm sure you can think of examples of blokes who once hunted, succumb. They're not hunters. Above the shoulders stuff, again.

This is a combative sport. Keep it simple. Be the hunters for 120 minutes. Every single minute.

isn't that the whole point of saying we can't have it our way all the time?

To keep you fighting when it isn't?